Between Want And Need
by VerelLupin
Summary: Nikita's been thinking about the two most important men in her life and her relationships with each of them. But she must make a choice between Michael and Owen, can she decide who she wants and who she needs?


**Funny enough I started out as a Mikita shipper, (yes I squealed anytime Owen came out) but I did like Nikita and Michael together until the whole London kid thing and he turned into an ass. I held out hope for Mikita then Season 3 happened and his lost hand and I was like (ugh I give) then Nowen really flourished for me until they butchered their relationship (stupid writers)**

**Anyway I am now a hard core Nowen and though I know Mikita will probably be end game, I'd really like her to mesh Owen and Sam with better balance between the two and at least kiss once. (everybody else has why can't they?)  
**

**I'm also going to add more stories because this couple needs more, they are uberly unappreciated.**

**Okay this is totally canon up til the episode Masks. Then its Au, let's pretend that he killed Amanda and for some reason let Nikita go. (cough because he still loves her, regardless of the stupid writers cough)**

**Enjoy...**

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They're both so different from each other. Polar opposites.

She does not compare them, it be unfair if she did. But she does catalog their differences, mostly for her own purpose.

She roots through them to understand why she can't let either one all the way in or all the way out. Why she can't be with one without missing the other.

His eyes are blue and so wide and deep that she worries about drowning in them. They're always that starling shade and they never waver when they look at her, which is why it is always her that looks away first.

She admits that she used his remorse to her advantage. At least she did until she saw it physically etched in the many tattoos that adorn his body. Tattoos that have pressed against her more times than she can count.

Times when he's been so out of his mind that her body is his only refuge and her arms have learned to tighten and soften at just the right times.

He's hot and cold and every temperature in between like a thermostat gone haywire. His moods can be dark or as golden as his hair in the blink of an eye but she can't or won't let him go.

She's still unsure what exact combination of worry and fear made her follow him to his home after Amanda was killed. What parts of her actions were after mission adrenaline and which were part of a love that had started when he apologized for what he was.

Whatever it was at the time, it drove her to remind him of who she was with lips that had never kissed the other him, that always wanted to even when she'd been with Michael.

He had tried to say that he was still mostly Sam and not Owen but the two people in his head made sense of the chaos of her feelings. He tried to push her away as much as the barely there Owen had tried pulling her closer.

She used his confusion and what little remained of his other self and imbedded herself into his new memories. So if he were Owen or Sam, he'd still be all hers.

He was the mercury that fueled her madness and she rolled in it. Consumed them in the joys of their forbidden relationship that had started when he killed Daniel and she killed Emily.

After the haze of lust has passed and she left his bed exhausted and shamed he didn't hold it against her. She sees his understanding and she marvels again at why she would ever want to leave this man, who thinks he is so damaged, when its her fault he never gets better.

At some point she'll have to make a choice, in some distant time frame Michael will find out, she's left too much of herself with Owen/Sam to keep the charade up any longer.

Michael is an equal enigma. Their home is theirs unlike Owen's which his just a base of operations, a place to sleep. While with Michael it's a place to put down roots now that they have pardons.

He isn't home and she showers glad for a chance alone. Glad not to have to look into his changing eyes, his green and brown eyes that can be dark or light depending on his mood. Just as Owen's remind her of an ocean, Michael's remind her of a forest.

She gets lost in them and they can be serene as he earnestly rebuilds their future and makes a house a home but they are also dark and scary when she doesn't agree with him about her involvement with their old division. He forbids her from contacting Sean and Alex or keeping any coded phones that help her communicate with Berkoff and Sonya.

His eyes shift colors from the soft greens of love when they make love to the dark brown of hate when she casually mentions Owen. The dark that blames her for still not giving him the child and life he wanted even though their missions are now over. Blames her for holding onto someone other than him.

His emotions never move from their comfort of what's right for them no matter what it costs them personally. What it will cost her. She fingers the dark waves of his hair and feels their darkness sink into her that much more.

She's not good for him either but she's so addicted to his wholesome goodness that she can't see the damage she is doing anymore. She goes to their bed and kisses those stern lips that soften under her touch and she wishes she could soften his expectations of her that easily.

His body is not marked as extensively as Owens but his heart is and she knows that. And though he doesn't know about Sam, she suspects Michael knows her heart is in more than one place and he can't totally fault her since half of his heart is buried with his wife and daughter.

She's laying a powder keg on their foundation but she can't stop lighting it. She wants one and needs the other. Loves them in different ways. Michael is the out to her life of constant death. Owen is the understanding of that life and living with herself.

"You're thinking pretty hard," his husky voice utters.

"Thinking of what we've given up to be here like this," she replies.

"Was it worth it?"

She says yes and they fall asleep with his arms wrapped around her while her mind wraps around what she needs to do, has to do, come the morning light.

Morning dawns but she says nothing and when he comes back from Belarus, where his son is now currently living, she acts like the dutiful little wife she'll be. The days run into each other and she slips back and forth between their beds keeping them all in a terrible limbo.

The day she finds out she's pregnant is horrifying. She tells them she's taking a break to see Alex to Michael and Birkoff to Owen.

She instead goes to the field that used to house division and sits in the abandoned farm trying to figure out what the hell to do about this mess.

"What's wrong, Nikita?"

"Wrong? Everything is wrong. I'm supposed to be with him and I'm not supposed to love him and I do but I'm not ready for this. I can't be a mother. I can't do this."

"You can do anything."

"Not this. I never had this. I have no idea how to be anything but a killer."

"He doesn't think so."

"Owen can be optimistic when he wants to be but this would freak even him out."

"I never said Owen, you did." The phantom Amanda smiled.

"I don't have time for you games." Nikita snarled back.

"Its not a game. Its logical deduction, think of each of their qualities, and decide from those experiences with them, which one you want and which one you need."

"Why are you here?" Nikita said then laughed. She was going crazy; instead of going to a friend she'd gone to a dead division to seek advice from a dead Amanda.

"I'm here because despite all the things that happened I have never lied to you. I have always told you how things are. I manipulated the results and didn't tell you all the facts but everything I did tell you was always the truth. The hard ugly truth."

She nodded and began listing.

Blue, unwavering versus green, shifting

Blonde, understanding of her darkness versus Brown, the light that shone on said darkness.

Damaged psychologically, equally tortured about their pasts but willing to move on versus Damaged physically, unwilling to keep their old alliances believing it will keep the past alive.

Shattered, two personalities melding back together on good days, separate and at odds with each other on bad days versus Broken, one personality that wants a to return to a normal life that only existed for him.

Need, has to have him to survive. To fill that emptiness they both carry versus Want, to be the woman she was supposed to be. To be the family he lost.

She returns home and packs her bags, all two of them.

She waits and when he gets home she tells him of the pregnancy and how it might not be his and allows his rage then heartbreak wash over her.

He doesn't bother to watch her leave and she doesn't tell him she'll be back, she won't ever.

She goes to his current place and waits and when he gets home she tells of him of the pregnancy and how it might be his and allows his rage then confusion wash over her.

She doesn't bother to stay and he doesn't stop her from leaving. Nikita doesn't say she'll be back because he knows she will, they need time.

Three months pass and she loses the child, three more pass before she goes to him.

She drops her bags, slips into his shower and falls asleep in his bed waiting until he gets back from wherever he spends his days. It wasn't something he shared even when they were together and she hopes he hasn't moved on.

She wakes as he slides in beside her. She turns and moves into his arms and he kisses her forehead and she finally gives in to her grief.

"We'll be okay," he says answering the question that's rolling around her head.

"We've given up so much," she replies.

"Not what matters," he answers.

Nikita places a kiss on his chapped lips and finally stops listing their differences. There is only she and he and their lost child. She admits that had it been born it would have been his.

"The pain wasn't…"

"Worth it." He finishes for her.

She lays their joined hands on her flat stomach. "It was worth it so much," she corrects. "So much that it's not worth giving up on."

"You barely know this version." He argues.

"You didn't know me." She counters.

She's made her choice. She needs his blond, blue-eyed sarcasm. Needs his psychologically damaged shattered self to put herself back together, to be who she could be.

He kissed her and she kissed him back fully. Gave him everything she'd been unable to give because it was in the care of another. No more halves, no more pieces, she was handing it all to the one man who understood all of her.

Nikita had let Michael out and let Sam in.


End file.
